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Show Vernal Express Tuesday, July 25, 2007 B5 nil v-A i3x ,t' LTs; THE THEY LOOKED 4. Mnrr . rouM IO.t4.WS OJ-.'' 1 ", U.C0Ll'U.0 ' ' . J M tM'fw !MM !. JM CUO rM JT l68.0OTt UKf.CH ift ' VMMMV ML . At7, II m-t"i. . II : ' " SsJ""1 ' II - L!C"' mm ... nMHM . I6A. miciu." iteiiWjf " itf , . . - J '" ' nHuuH " "r. iXX t. WWLO ATT L T5. JOOT ft LtUU MCCHW ' ckuimh - - I Author of the book, "The Utah UFO Display," Frank Salisbury sits next to Joseph Junior Hicks of Roosevelt. The photo was taken in 1972, and published in the book. Hicks helped Salisbury with his book by providing helpful information about residents of the Uintah Basin who had seen UFOs. These fifteen UFO sketches were drawn by residents of the Uintah Basin who saw these saucers soaring over their head. Nila Batty's drawing, pictured near the lower left, shows what she described as a "saucer with a sugar bowl turned upside down on it." This UFO model, made by Joseph Junior Hicks, shows an approximate ap-proximate scale model based on accounts of witnesses - of a convex planar craft (left) and a double convex craft. UFO sightings from years past still remembered today Br Rasm BtfaanHL Uintah County News Service The 1960sand'70sare largely remembered as a time when hippies were using drugs to "explore other worlds" in their minds. During that same time though, a group of Uintah Basin residents claim they had numerous numer-ous encounters with objects that may have come from elsewhere in the universe. "You don't hear about it anymore. any-more. It was just a phase. It just went, " said Nila Batty of Vernal, who reported several sightings of unidentified flying objects the '60s. Batty is one of more than 75 The light was to in the east and Batty couldn't tell how far away it was. She said she just laid there and watched the "bright star" because it was -60 fascinating fascinat-ing to her. She thought it might have been a plane or a helicopter, but she couldn't tell. "I kept watching it, and then there were two more that came up, but they seemed farther away and they weren't quite as bright," Batty said. "They just hovered there, hovered and hovered; and then it just began getting closer, and closer, and closer, and closer; and finally it area residents known toave-Mookedhkea,kindoflikeasaucer seen a flying object at least once or twice during the 1960s and '70s, as documented in the book "The Utah UFO Display." The book's author, Frank Salisbury, came to Roosevelt in search of "close encounters." Salisbury was a professor of plant physiology at Utah State University in the 1970s, which is far from the study of UFOs. He became interested in the unique study while in graduate school when he wrote a term paper about life on Mars. The paper, "Martian Biology" was later published as an article in the magazine Science. Salisbury took a oe year leave of absence" from USU in 1973 to study plants and write, when he became intrigued by UFO sightings in northeastern Utah. He traveled to the Uintah Uin-tah Basin and talked to Joseph Junior Hicks, who had kept a record of individuals who had seen UFOs. Hicks then helped Salisbury contact citizens, and "The Utah UFO Display" was published in 1974. "At that time we saw lots of lights and we saw lots of things that we thought were UFOs and I was just interested," Batty said. She said she heard rumors that oil field workers saw UFOs frequently during the daylight hours as well as at night. She believes whatever the flying objects were, they were not here to hurt anyone. "I do know they weren't here to do any harm," Batty said. "It would have been done, because there were a lot of sightings here." One sighting in particular that Batty recalls occurred late at night on her properly in Vernal. Ver-nal. "There were lots of sightings around that time, but that was the only one that I thought was anything that definite," Batty said. One night in September of 1966 the cows were getting restless and bellowing and the dogs were barking on Batty's property. In her 30s at the time, Batty thought that maybe the UFOs made a sound that only animals could hear. "The cows had been so restless rest-less that I had worried that they were out or that something was bothering them," she recalled. Batty had been up several times that night to check on them. Her husband worked the night shift and she was alone in her room that night at around midnight. "I could just sit and look out the window and it faced the field where the cows were," she said. "As I was looking out the window, all of a sudden there was just a light that came, just zoomed up into the sky." with a sugar bowl turned upside down on it. She didn't dare call anyone in fear that once she called them and told them, the objects would fly away and they would think she was crazy. "I tried to wake my children up. I wanted them to see it but they were young and they were too sleepy to wake up," she said. The objects continued to hover in her yard for almost an hour and then they left. Batty said the objects never came close enough for her to see any shape to them. "Some people said they were cigar shaped some of them said they were more disk shaped," she said. Batty had another encounter, which involved her young son. She said her son was playing in the sand pile just west of her house when the cows became restless and the dogs started barking a lot, a sign that something some-thing was amiss. She said her son came into the house with wide eyes and said, "Mom the moon just went over my head." Batty went outside. She didn't see anything. "I have no idea what it was, but I do know that they weren't here to do any harm and I wasn't afraid of them," she said. "After a little while the cows just settled down, the dogs quit barking and everything was just fine again." Another resident, who chose to remain anonymous, remembers remem-bers when he was about 30 years old and had a few encounters with crafts that originally looked like shooting stars. "It was real. I've never seen anything like it before; I've seen something other than that also, but nothing like this," said the man, who remembers his experience experi-ence of over 20 years ago when he saw what he thought was a UFO. In November 1966, the man was going to run errands with his 10-year-old brother down the road from their house. They drove and then stopped when they saw something that looked like a star coming toward them. It came out of the sky like a falling star, the now 53-year-old said. Right when he thought the falling star was going to burn out it came closer and appeared to be a bright light; something that might explode if it hit the ground. The object traveled across two 40-acre fields and hovered, about 30 to 40 feet off of the ground, until it moved across the road. "When it crossed the highway it was about a half-mile away from us, and we could hear it," the man said, "We could hear a sound that it was giving off. It was a really, really loud sound." The man said the object got closer and kept getting louder and louder until it stopped right on top of him and his brother. "The ground was all lit up," he said, "We were pretty well scared at that point." They were both lying face down on the ground and shouting shout-ing back and forth, because the noise was so loud. "My little brother kept asking me what are we going to do, and I said, "Well whatever it is it sure knows we're here, and it's not gonna hurt us or they would have done something by now,'" he related, with a little chuckle. It seemed like the craft sat there forever but he guessed it was only five minutes. He described de-scribed the craft as round and a bit thick in the middle. He said there was also a large floodlight on the bottom, center of the craft. When it was about to take off the floodlight went out and the noise also stopped and "then it just shot straight across the . ground up toward the Neola turnout," he said. After the encounter, the man said that he and his brother couldn't remember about an hour and a half of the time while they were gone ninning errands. He said the errands they ran wouldnormallyonlytakeabouta half hour but he said when they left at 6:30 p.m. they didn't get back until about 9 p.m. "What we had to go do was going to only take us a little ' while," he said."I can't explain what took us so long." The man said he's considered hypnosis to find out what went on during that time lapse. "It'salwaysbotheredmeeven until today. I still think about it from time to time," he said. "I've always wondered what went on in that hour and a half, and I don't dare go under hypnosis. I'd like to, but maybe it's better to leave things alone." Another man and his wife said they saw something in the sky, while driving around the Basin in 1966. "My wife and I saw what we thought were UFOs a couple of times," said 76-year-old Arnold Clerico. The couple saw one in the southwest sky while driving on U.S. 40 after visiting Vernal and one in the southern sky when they were driving down from Paradise. To begin with, it looked like a star and then we saw it moving," mov-ing," he said. "There were other reports along about that time but that's the only two that we remember." Battythoughttheprevalence of the UFOs in the area was something that came to the basin and then traveled to other regions of the earth. She wasn't sure if what she saw was really a UFO or if it was "something experimental for the military or for the weather people." However Batty did say, "If we can go to the moon, somebody from somewhere else can come here." The Vernal Elks Lodge would like to thank all the local business for donating for the Vernal City fire works. We hope everyone enjoyed the show. If your in one of these businesses please thank them for donating to the 4th July Fire Works. R.W. Jones Tracking The Pro Shop Pepsi of Vernal S&H Glass Bull Ring Pitt Roofing Esquire R.V. 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